Tablets help PNG banks reach remote customers

Papua New Guinea's Bank South Pacific (BSP) has become one of the first banks in the world to use hand-held tablet computers to sign up new customers.

Across the Pacific, the push is on by banks to get their services out to new customers, and to do so banks have deployed everything from staff on motorbikes through to armoured vehicles.

In Papua New Guinea, the spoils of the resources boom, particularly the massive royalties from the PNG LNG project, have given the race a new urgency, as many of the landowners who will receive those royalties, have never used banks.

Most live in the PNG Highlands, some in areas that do not even have road access, but Bank South Pacific's Managing Director, Ian Clyne, says they do have mobile phone coverage.

"BSP is using state-of-the-art technology," he said.

"We have got about 350 Galaxy tablet computers, with a wireless card swipe and using that tablet, we can now open an account anywhere in the country in very, very remote areas in 5 minutes and give the person a working debit card that they could, technically, walk up to the next ATM or Eftpos and withdraw the money immediately."

Westpac and the ANZ Bank are also moving as fast as they can to use innovative ways of signing up new customers .

ANZ's Papua New Guinea CEO, Vishnu Mohan, plans to open a new kind of branch inside the main PNG LNG project compound in the Highlands.

"We as an institution, we are in the process of setting up a bank-tainer, which is essentially a 40-foot container in the Hides area, at the request of ExxonMobil who as you know are the operators of the project," he said.

"It is actually to help some of these landowner groups to bank the money and put the money into the formal sector. Simultaneously, we are also launching a mobile phone banking program, which is essentially to bank the unbanked and this, hopefully, will be launched towards the last quarter of this year in PNG and some of the other Pacific countries."

ANZ and Westpac are a long way behind Bank South Pacific in reaching rural customers; BSP has more than double the number of rural branches and many more agents and automatic teller machines - all of which need supplying with cash.

Ian Clyne says moving cash around in Papua New Guinea can be a dangerous business.

"In 2011, we did 3000 cash deliveries around PNG of which 300 were flights," he said.

"Law and order, as we all know, is a major consideration for a bank in any country, but in PNG with the challenges that the police and government have, it means that BSP has to run our own security operation and we have over 460 people working for our security department."

"To be honest, we are under threat on a daily basis. As you can appreciate 80 per cent of the cash that circulates in Papua New Guinea we are distributing. There are and have been attempted robberies and successful robberies."

Survey's show rural people in PNG see banks as the safest place to put their money and are keen to open accounts.